Screenwriting Tips

drama, haunted, Haunting of Hill House, house, screenwriting tips - December 27, 2018

Case Study: Tugging the Heartstrings in THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

SPOILER ALERT – do not read this article if you haven’t yet seen the entire first season of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE.

SECOND SPOILER ALERT – seriously, don’t do it. Are you still reading this? Have you seen the whole first season? Okay, let’s get into it.

Haunted house movies are a dime a dozen. If you look through a list of haunted house films (there aren’t that many haunted house TV shows, by contrast) they follow a similar template (people move into a haunted house, spooky things happen to them, repeat).

Yet, somehow THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE takes this template and endows it with powerful human drama.

Screenplay Sale: How Much Money Do I Get?

Unfortunately, the economics of screenwriting are challenging for most people who do it, and that includes working pros. Let’s take an example sale and walk through it, and sadly observe the money get chopped away on that screenplay sale.

Earlier this year, Global Road bought the spec screenplay “Rawhide Down” from screenwriter Alex Cramer. Deadline reported the deal as six-figures. So, let’s say, for argument’s sake, this sale was for 350 thousand dollars or more.

Great Endings: What Feels Right In A Classic Ending

What makes a great ending? It can be a maddening question. Maybe you’ve found an awesome, compelling concept, figured out a strong narrative structure and plot, and written a multi-faceted, actor-bait protagonist role. But try as you might, you still can’t nail that ending. It feels too flat and predictable, too abrupt… it just feels wrong.

A lot of times, this boils down a lack of thematic challenge intrinsic in the choice of ending. Let’s consider some classic examples. THE SEARCHERS is widely considered a classic of the Western genre and frequently shows up on “best of” lists.

The end of the film shows John Wayne, after he’s triumphed, and seemingly “won” the movie by returning his abducted niece. He should come inside the cabin and have a happy moment, right?

Repeat Business: Feature Film Producers are Your Lifeline

Screenwriters and film producers are a marriage of necessity. Producers need scripts. Writers need producers to get their scripts made. Industry lore is littered with examples of screenwriters feeling jerked around by producers, and there’s a combative relationship often implied between these two parties.

Screenplay Rewrites: And/Or Hell For Screenwriters

Rewriting your screenplay sucks. It’s painful, exhausting work. You, as the screenwriter, already know what your movie should be. You’ve seen it in your head. You know what the final film should feel like, and you’ve put the roadmap on paper so other people can see it, too.

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Case Study: Tugging the Heartstrings in THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

Screenplay Sale: How Much Money Do I Get?

Great Endings: What Feels Right In A Classic Ending

Repeat Business: Feature Film Producers are Your Lifeline

Screenplay Rewrites: And/Or Hell For Screenwriters

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